Beastie Boys Book

December 1, 2018

This history of the groundbreaking hip-hop band takes the reader from their origins as troublemaking teens who achieved success too early to know what to do with it to their days as skilled musicians who never stopped having fun. Horovitz and Diamond dig deep and linger affectionately on the music and club scene of 1980s New York and don't flinch away from their missteps and the people they hurt on the way to success. It's a wildly strange, funny, and entertaining book. The book is a love letter to the late Adam Yauch, the Beasties' third member, who died in 2012. Horovitz and Diamond don't dwell on Yauch's death, making it clear that this is a memoir of the band, not its members, but his life and influence are woven throughout, and their affection for Yauch and their sadness at his absence shine through clearly in both the text and their narration. A handful of guest contributors, including Spike Jonze, former Beasties drummer Kate Schellenbach (who was fired from the band in its early days), and Amy Poehler, add a chapter here and there for other perspectives. Horovitz and Diamond narrate about half the chapters and pop in frequently to comment on each other's narratives via footnotes (usually with a healthy dose of snark). Horovitz is a little more comfortable and natural as a reader, but both voices add rich notes of authenticity. The book features a dizzying array of celebrity guest performers (nearly four dozen), including Snoop Dogg, Elvis Costello, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Jon Stewart, and Bette Midler. VERDICT Recommended for fans of the band, of course; readers who want a music memoir liberally laced with absurdist humor; and those with an interest in the history of the New York punk and hip-hop scenes of the day. ["Highly recommended for fans of the trio as well as public libraries and academic collections serving students of music and cultural and American studies and U.S. history": LJ 10/15/18 starred review of the Spiegel & Grau hc.]--Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

This excellent band memoir features more than 40 mostly celebrity narrators--a diverse crew ranging from Snoop Dogg to Rachel Maddow. Most of the narrators add value to the audiobook experience, but the pass-the-mic structure sometimes distracts from the great content. Some of the most stirring sections occur when the Beastie Boys co-authors narrate, especially when they talk about their bandmate Adam Yauch, who passed away in 2012. Like their albums, this audiobook is both stupid (there's a fictional oral history of Cookie Puss) and smart (the backstory of Grand Royal records is explained), as well as eclectic (there are recipes, mixtapes, equipment lists) and historical (the evolution of downtown hip-hop and New York City before 9/11 are described). R.W.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine